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Albany's Majority Parties Lord It Over the Underdogs

In an office near the Capitol is a collection of computers that look as if they belong in a Museum of Woefully Antiquated Technology -- crotchety curios from the mid-1980's that can barely be used to write reports, never mind send E-mail or access the Internet. To the researchers for the Republican minority in the Assembly who have to work on these machines, every keystroke is a reminder that in Albany, it isn't easy to be out of power.

More than their counterparts in other state capitals and in Washington, the majority parties in the New York Legislature have devised myriad ways of keeping their rivals down. This year, life for the have-nots -- Assembly Republicans and Senate Democrats -- seems to have gotten only worse.

The strategies range from the parliamentary (blocking votes on bills proposed by the minority) to the petty (forcing a Republican Assemblyman to remove his photo from a constituent newsletter because his sweatshirt featured an elephant, that egregious Republican symbol).

Last year, the Senate allocated $75 million for ''member items,'' a euphemism for pork barrel projects that lawmakers dole out to their districts. The Republican Senate majority, which holds 36 of the 61 seats, got 95 percent of the money.

''The process has become so oppressive that they think that they are extending us a courtesy by allowing us to sit in the chamber,'' said Senator David A. Paterson, a Manhattan Democrat who is deputy minority leader. ''They probably think that they have a right to make us sit in the gallery.''

Albany's rules and customs relegate Senate Democrats and Assembly Republicans to bystanders, largely barred from influencing legislation and able to attract attention only as gadflies. And the everyday indignities do not even reflect what is probably the majorities' ultimate perquisite: the ability to gerrymander legislative districts every 10 years during reapportionment, which makes most majority incumbents hard to oust on Election Day.

Ask the majorities' leaders whether the system is unfair and they generally give two responses: ''This is how it has always been.'' And, ''Tough.''

Of course, complaining about the tyrannical majority is common in legislative bodies, as underdogs seek to use their misfortunes to galvanize voters. Still, the majorities in New York go to unusual lengths to enfeeble the minority parties.

The majorities control all operating expenditures for their houses, and they allot resources in a manner perhaps familiar to any younger sibling. The Assembly Republicans' obsolete computers were once the Assembly Democrats'. The Senate minority leader, Martin Connor of Brooklyn, is entitled to a state car. The hand-me-down that he got was the majority leader's in the early 1990's and has nearly 100,000 miles on it.

Mr. Connor recalled that when he asked the majority for a new fax machine, the one he received soon began breaking. The repairman said he knew just how to fix it, because the fax machine had been in a Republican Senator's office and had had the same problems there.

Mr. Connor said that when he wanted his Albany-based aides to attend meetings in his New York City office, he had to obtain approval for travel expenses from the majority. He said his relations with the majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno of Brunswick, were fine, but he believed that Mr. Bruno allocated even less money for the Democrats' needs than his predecessors did.

With their authority absolute, the majorities can and sometimes do rifle through the official mail that minority members send through legislative postal services. The majorities say they have the right to insure that such correspondence is not politically oriented, which would violate the rules. Needless to say, the minority blocs cannot check the majorities' mail.

Experts who have studied state legislatures say relations in New York's are so strained in large part because the majorities have maintained power for so long -- the Assembly Democrats since 1975, the Senate Republicans for almost the entire century. That has allowed the majorities to chip away relentlessly at the minorities' privileges.

In other large states with expansive legislatures, like California, Illinois and Pennsylvania, control has shifted more often, which prevents one party from amassing the resources and changing parliamentary rules. New York ''is a strongly partisan state, but also one that is unlikely to have the balance of powers flip,'' said Rich Jones, director of legislative programs at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

There tends to be a little more comity in the New York Senate than in the Assembly. The Senate is a smaller body and some members have formed friendships across party lines. Even so, some Senate Democrats are talking about suing over Senate customs. They note that Democrats represent most of the urban voters in the state, meaning that black and Hispanic residents receive far less in Senate-sponsored aid than white ones do.

Asked about such inequities, John McArdle, a spokesman for Mr. Bruno, said, ''This is the way that these initiatives have been distributed for years.'' Mr. McArdle added that Republican senators receive more money for staff members and bigger offices because as members of the majority, they serve as committee chairmen and thus have more duties.

''The staffing is determined by virtue of responsibility,'' he said.

In the Assembly, the tensions appear to be more pronounced now than at any other time in memory. The Speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, rarely speaks with the Republican minority leader, John J. Faso, who represents a district near Albany and has close ties to Gov. George E. Pataki, a fellow Republican. The Democrats have a 98-to-52 advantage in the Assembly.

Mr. Silver views Mr. Faso as a mouthpiece for the Governor and has repeatedly cracked down on the Assembly Republicans in an effort to punish Mr. Faso for behavior that Mr. Silver contends is overly belligerent. For example, Mr. Silver has prevented Republicans from becoming co-sponsors on politically popular bills. Mr. Faso, in turn, has all but called Mr. Silver a dictator.

Mr. Silver has come under steady attack from Mr. Faso, Mr. Pataki and the Republican State Committee in recent years, and he does not dispute that he is using his chamber's rules to exact revenge. In an interview, he made no apologies for the way he treats Republican members, suggesting that if Mr. Faso were more conciliatory, he would get more resources.

''John Faso is there as an agent for the Governor exclusively,'' said Mr. Silver, questioning whether Mr. Faso needed any staff members at all because he could easily rely on the Pataki administration for help.

Asked about the computers used by the researchers for the Assembly Republicans, Mr. Silver said for the first time that he had granted approval for new ones. That was news to Mr. Faso.

''There is absolutely no effort to treat our side fairly,'' Mr. Faso said.

Though they are typically on the sidelines, the minority blocs play an important role in the rare instances when the Legislature tries to override a veto. Both majorities lack the two-thirds vote that is required for an override, so they have to turn to minority members for support. If this year's budget fight is marked by vetoes of spending bills by Mr. Pataki, as it was last year, then the Assembly Republicans, in particular, could determine whether an override succeeds. The Senate Democrats, who have no love for Mr. Pataki, are much more likely to back an override attempt.

For now, though, the minority blocs labor in obscurity.

The Assembly Republicans' frustration boiled over on Monday, when Mr. Silver employed an arcane parliamentary maneuver to take away one of their few rights: the ability to try to force a vote on a bill. The Republicans were seeking to bring legislation to the floor that would ban the procedure that abortion critics refer to as ''partial-birth abortion.''

After a caustic debate over the rules enforced by the Democrats, one that the Republicans inevitably lost, Mr. Faso rose to speak.

''I am shocked and saddened by the way the majority distorts and contorts the rules,'' he said. ''You should be ashamed at the way in which you have allowed this body to descend. I weep for what you are doing in this house.''